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Here’s one well documented review of early history that shows the “rise of the machine” known as what I call the RCC - http://www.searchgodsword.org/his/ad/hop/view.cgi?book=1&chapter=3

Chapter 5 of this book documents by name several Italian bishops who did not accept key erroneous RCC doctrines. Here’s an example:

To come to the sixth century, we find Laurentius, Bishop of Milan, holding that the penitence of the heart, without the absolution of a priest, suffices for pardon; and in the end of the same century (A.D. 590) we find the bishops of Italy and of the Grisons, to the number of nine, rejecting the communion of the Pope, as a heretic, so little then was the infallibility believed in, or the Roman supremacy acknowledged. [8] In the seventh century we find Mansuetus, Bishop of Milan, declaring that the whole faith of the Church is contained in the Apostle’s Creed; from which it is evident that he did not regard as necessary to salvation the additions which Rome had then begun to make, and the many she has since appended to the apostolic doctrine. The Ambrosian Liturgy, which, as we have said, continues to be used in the diocese of Milan, is a monument to the comparative purity of the faith and worship of the early Churches of Lombardy.

From chapter 11:

Transubstantiation, as we have already shown, was invented by the monk Paschasius Radbertus in the ninth century; it came into England in the train of William the Conqueror and his Anglo-Norman priests; it was zealously preached by Lanfranc, a Benedictine monk and Abbot of St. Stephen of Caen in Normandy, [1] who was raised to the See of Canterbury under William; and from the time of Lanfranc to the days of Wicliffe this tenet was received by the Anglo-Norman clergy of England. [2] It was hardly to be expected that they would very narrowly or critically examine the foundations of a doctrine which contributed so greatly to their power; and as regards the laity of those days, it was enough for them if they had the word of the Church that this doctrine was true.

From chapter 11:

To me, leaving aside the inevitable and unprovable suggestion that the reason for sticking with the doctrine was the lust for power (rolls eyes - Lanfranc a Nietzschean! Who knew? ), this is about the development of Doctrine.

Transubstantiation in all its Thomistic glory could scarcely have been developed before the recovery of Aristotle to the west. It's a matter of how we talk about "what things are" as much as that of theology in the more confined sense.

If I've quit smoking and I use an ashtray to hold down papers on my desk (I'm sure there's a desk here under all this stuff ...) is it an ashtray or a paperweight?. Where I ~~grew up~~ spent my childhood we would link a chain to an old radiator and tie rope to the chain and a buoy to the rope and moor our small boats to this rig. So, that thing sinking into the sandy bottom, is it radiator or an anchor? Or am I wrong, and if so why, to say, "It's just a chunk of iron." That's the kind of question which underlies the attempt at a systematic and coherent articulation of Eucharistic doctrine which Radbertus -> Aquinas -> Trent etc. provide. To those of us for whom such questions are not idle wastes of time, it's worth noting that not so long ago Heidegger wrote a small book called What is a Thing? It's a good question.

Here are some excerpts I just found from Ambrose, who lived a little while before Radbertus:

Perhaps you will say, "I see something else, how is it that you assert that I receive the Body of Christ?" And this is the point which remains for us to prove. And what evidence shall we make use of? Let us prove that this is not what nature made, but what the blessing consecrated, and the power of blessing is greater than that of nature, because by blessing nature itself is changed.

The problem is stated: You say it's the body of Christ, but it sure looks like bread to me. So what's up? And the assertion is made that the "nature" is changed.

Then we have some examples of lesser changes of nature (rods into snakies) concluding in:

Shall not the word of Christ, which was able to make out of nothing that which was not, be able to change things which already are into what they were not? For it is not less to give a new nature to things than to change them.

Then he appeals to the Incarnation as the supreme example of God going around "order of nature":

It is the true Flesh of Christ which crucified and buried, this is then truly the Sacrament of His Body.

The passage continues

The Lord Jesus Himself proclaims: "This is My Body." Before the blessing of the heavenly words another nature is spoken of, after the consecration the Body is signified. He Himself speaks of His Blood. Before the consecration it has another name,after it is called Blood. And you say, Amen, that is, It is true. Let the heart within confess what the mouth utters, let the soul feel what the voice speaks.

Now I would readily concede that this is not full-blown transubstantiation. It is rather a clear expression of a change in the bread and wine. That's key - the "real presence" somehow "in" what was bread and wine. One can point to the locus of this presence, I think he asserts. And I say that only to distinguish clearly between "Real presence in the believer" and real presence in, well that stuff that sure looks like bread and wine.

To us, as believers, that assertion is good news. But to a theologian, it's still a problem: "Just what exactly do you mean by all that?"

So the "invention" (prejudicial word) of Transubstantiation is NOT a new assertion that the elements formerly known as "the bread and wine" are now the presence of Christ in His (risen) body and blood, it's a refinement of what that assertion means.

I am not trying in any way here to defend the idea that Christ is really present in what was bread and wine. I am only addressing the suggestion that Transubstantiation was an innovation.

***The Pope had now attained two of the three grades of power that constitute his stupendous dignity. He had made himself a bishop of bishops, head of the Church, and he had become a crowned monarch. Did this content him? No! He said, “I will ascend the sides of the mount; I will plant my throne above the stars; I will be as God.” Not content with being a bishop of bishops, and so governing the whole spiritual affairs of Christendom, he aimed at becoming a king of kings, and so of governing the whole temporal affairs of the world. He aspired to supremacy, sole, absolute, and unlimited. This alone was wanting to complete that colossal fabric of power, the Popedom, and towards this the pontiff now began to strive. ***

A tad slanted, would you not say?

***This success, continued through seven centuries, was audaciously interpreted into a proof of the divinity of the Papacy. ***

The cited site is liberally scattered with such gems, a little lean on proofs and many appeals to unnamed authority.

***The apostacy was not universal. At no time did God leave his ancient Gospel without witnesses. When one body of confessors yielded to the darkness, or was cut off by violence, another arose in some other land, so that there was no age in which, in some country or other of Christendom, public testimony was not borne against the errors of Rome, and in behalf of the Gospel which she sought to destroy. ***

I think that the flavour, as well as the accuracy of this site is captured here. The author appeals to the romantic idea of an underground Church which the Holy Spirit in His wisdom has quietly supported, as well as one of the main planks in the continuing Protestant platform of the Church attempting to destroy the Gospel.

The prose is quite entertaining, I’ll give you that. But I think that direction of the article was chosen before any supporting evidence was assembled. It is a marvelous work of half fiction. I commend the author both in its writing style and in its magnitude.